“What the devil are you looking at, Poe?” asked Crockett, leaning far to one side so as to peer around my body, which occupied an intervening position between the window and himself. The instant his face became visible to the small band of juvenile observers, they immediately burst into a chorus of excited ejaculations.

“It is him!” cried one of the boys, his round, somewhat porcine countenance suffused with wonder. “You were right, Jesse!”

“Didn’t I say so!” crowed the towheaded lad, who—I now perceived—suffered from that unfortunate ocular affliction commonly known as walleyes. “You are Davy Crockett, ain’t you?” he asked, addressing the frontiersman while keeping his gaze riveted firmly on me.

“Blamed if I ain’t, young ’un,” said Crockett with an amiable chuckle. By this point, he had risen from his seat and was standing, arms akimbo, in the center of the floor.

“I knew it was you the minute I saw you!” exclaimed the walleyed youth named Jesse. Gesturing at me with a tilt of his chin, he asked: “And who’s that?”

“My pard,” said Crockett. “Mr. Edgar Poe.”

“Why’s he wearing that snotrag around his face?” asked the boy.

Though this crudely phrased question was addressed to my companion, I thought it only proper to reply to it myself. Accordingly, I explained that the handkerchief affixed to my countenance was intended as a prophylactic measure to protect my somewhat delicate respiratory organs from the insalubrious atmosphere of the chamber.

“As you are perhaps unaware,” I elaborated, “the pleural membranes of the human lung are, in many cases, unusually susceptible to certain varieties of airborne mold commonly found in houses which—”

Before I could elucidate further, the walleyed youth—whose upbringing had clearly been sadly deficient in matters of rudimentary etiquette—abruptly turned to Crockett and asked: “What are you doing here, Davy?”

“Me and Poe is searching for clues as to the nefarious murder of the feller what used to live here.”

“Old Mr. Montague!” cried the lad. “We heard all about it. How his eyes were stabbed out, and his throat was cut from ear to ear, and his body was buried under the floorboards!”

“That is the sorry truth of it, all right,” Crockett said gravely. “Any of you fellers hear anything else that might help us out?”

“No sir,” said Jesse, shaking his head. Then, pointing a thumb at the moonfaced lad at his side, he added: “Tommy here saw something, though.”

“Yes?” I said, looking intently at the youth denominated as Tommy. “And what precisely was the ‘thing’ that you observed?”

“A woman,” he replied.

“A woman!” Crockett and I exclaimed in unison.

“Yes sir,” said the boy. “The day old Mr. Montague disappeared. It was real early in the morning. I was just coming back from the privy, when I saw this strange woman sort of snooping around the street.”